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Topic: A thought about Noah's Ark..... (Read 10401 times)

Not to mention there is not one more drop of water on earth there wasn't the day the earth formed with water on it..nor is there one drop less except of course the vast oceans that NASA has been draining into the heavens.. Of course I'm kind of guessing on where all this water ACTUALLY came from because I wasn't here back then. I'm darned sure it didn't just *poof* appear all at once..

Obviously all you sinners did not realise that there is a perfectly sensible explanation and that The Flood really did cause the canyons on Mars: The Fountains of the deep ejected water into space, this became comets which hit Mars. (I’m feeling a bit of an idiot now for not realising this)

However, I will admit that when reading the OP, I was sceptical, so I wrote to the Radio Station

"While the Bible doesn't say anything about the flood that would suggest Mars was involved, some creation geologists say that it may have been. Once thing is certain. This water action did not take place billions of years ago as those who believe in evolution say."

I am in the middle of preparing a modest publication on the Noahide Flood; I would be most grateful if could you give me some references for the creation geologists who have suggested that the Flood involved Mars as you say.

Thank you for your interest in Creation Moments and our little radio program. As far as I am aware, there is only one creationist who has suggested a possible connection between water [?] on Mars, water on our Moon and the Genesis Flood. The quote below is taken from the seventh edition [2001] of Dr. Walter Brown’s book In the Beginning …

Quote page 199: About 85% of a comet’s mass is frozen water. Therefore to understand comet origins, one must ask, “Where is water found?” Earth … must head the list … other planets, moons and even interstellar space have only traces of water, or possible water. These traces, instead of producing the comets, may have been caused by comets or water vapor that the “fountains of the great deep” launched into space [at the beginning of the Genesis Flood]. Quote continued, page 200. How could so many comets have recently hit the moon, and probably the planet Mercury [and Mars] that ice remains? Ice on the Moon and certainly on Mercury [and Mars] should disappear faster than the comets that deposited it. However, if 50,000 comets were ejected recently [5,000 years ago] from the Earth and an “ocean” of water vapor was injected into the inner solar system, the problem disappears. Comet impacts on Mars probably created brief saltwater flows, carving the famous “erosion” channels.

Brackets in the above quote are my added words. Dr. Brown’s discussion then continues for several more pages and includes tables of data and equations. I have great respect for Dr. Brown and know him personally as a Christian brother. Dr Brown’s hydroplate theory proposes that prior to the Genesis Flood there was an annular space between the Earth’s outer shell and the solid inner core. That space was maintained by supporting pillars between the shell and the core and was filled with hot salty water under pressure. At the time of the Flood the outer shell cracked down the center of what is today the Atlantic Ocean and the crack continued around the world at the ocean bottoms; there is abundant evidence for this. The Genesis Flood was initiated by this fracture opening to release the water jetting into space, breaking up into frozen balls and becoming orbiting comets. Evidently, some of these comets have since hit the Moon, Mercury and, in recent discoveries, possibly Mars. In another place he points out that on these planetary bodies the ice turned to water that left evidences of its presence by gullies, canyons etc but in the very low atmospheric pressures, this water quickly vaporized.

I can thoroughly recommend Dr.Brown’s rather massive though well reproduced book but particularly his scholarship. It can be purchased or downloaded at no cost at http://www.creationscience.com/

--o0o--

Dear Zena,I thank you for your excellent and detailed response below. You've been very helpful and it is more interesting than I could have imagined. I will read Dr. Walter Brown’s book In the Beginning … with interest.

Paul.

I hope that puts an end to all this mockery of God!

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

It's nice that you were so polite to Zena. She was helpful, after all. Hopefully she won't use Google and find out where your "modest publication" ended up, because, sadly, some of the militant evolutionists here may find Dr. Brown's innovative theory unintentionally amusing and worthy of ridicule...

Not to mention there is not one more drop of water on earth there wasn't the day the earth formed with water on it.

Well, I guess it's more water now, what with the occasional comet.Of course, there might also be less, what with the occasional meteor impact or solar flare accelerating hapless water molecules beyond escape velocity (and in the "right direction").

The sheer quantities of water the bearded conjurer would have to hide up his sleeve are mindboggling and way beyond any cosmic shenanigens the Earth has been exposed to during the past few millenia. Seriously, let's say the Earth is spherical,has a diameter of 12,000km, and we cover it with 9km of water ("fathoms deep", remember?).

That's 16,298,233,882km³ (unless I screwed up). That's so high I don't even know what the English word ist. 16.3 ... what, billiards? That's a cube with 2535 km on each side.The moon has a volume of around 21,958,000,000km³, thus the body of water needed to cover the highest mountains fathoms deep would be in the general ballpark of 75% of the moon's volume (or 1,5% of Earth's).

Any kind of fast tectonic or cosmic action involving that much reaction mass tends to leave continents cauterized.

However, if 50,000 comets were ejected recently [5,000 years ago] from the Earth and an “ocean” of water vapor was injected into the inner solar system, the problem disappears. Comet impacts on Mars probably created brief saltwater flows, carving the famous “erosion” channels.

50,000 streams of instantly vaporizing water with a speed of over 42,000km/h?I'm not even sure water is stable at the resulting temperatures.

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Evidently, some of these comets have since hit the Moon, Mercury and, in recent discoveries, possibly Mars.

I wonder how likely it is that even one single out of 50,000 comets shooting off in random directions hits any planet within a piddly few thousand years.

"Dr." Brown needs to get his head buried in a high school textbook.

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"Deferinate" itself appears to be a new word... though I'm perfectly carmotic with it.-xphobe

So...If I'm following it right another planet had a BUNCH of water and comet(s) or meteor(s) hit it launching ALL that water here which somehow just "grazed" the earth melting all that water which rained down on earth to cause the great flood...AND THEN magically all that water just evaporated or sank into the earth...I'm guessing what REALLY happened was all the animals on the ark got REALLY thirsty and began drinking it thus making the flood go down except for whatever was left as oceans and when those animals peed it was "kind of" salty so that made the oceans salty and the water content was just splashed off the earth by some "other" big comet that was just omitted from the bible because they just didn't want to scare people.. After all, the bible is just about happy thoughts ONLY.

Damned.. I should get a degree in creationist science..I'm pretty good at making shit up!

Wowsers. But here's an important question: how many of those civilisations were aware of the full extent and size of the planet, at the point where those tales were told? The Babylonians, for example.....were they aware of the existence of the Americas? Australasia? The Japans? Antarctica? Point being, when they talk of a deluge covering "the world".....how can we be sure that they are talking about a flood covering the whole planet, or just a big flood that covered most of their "world"?

See, that's where we would look at the geological evidence to support a GLOBAL flood. Shame there isn't any.

70% record a boat as being the means by which the chosen family (and animals) survived the flood.

How interesting!

"We asked 100 pre-industrial civilisations: what is a good way to survive on a large amount of water? And 70 answered: on a boat."

Ab-so-lutely incredible!

What is perhaps MORE amazing - when we relate to Christianity - is that so many people, the direct descendants of Noah and his family who spent so many months constructing a boat to such precise instructions, and then living on it for many more months.....somehow managed to "forget" that an Ark was involved, and instead speak of....something else.

I find it rather humorous that you are simultaneously saying "Noah's ark MUST have happened - everyone talks about floods" - while at the same time being more than happy that considerable numbers of people not only have no concept there was a boat involved, but also forget and corrupt the story over generations so that Yahweh's involvement is forgotten. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of stories do not mention Yahweh and his reasons at all.

Your point seems to be "accept majority opinion....except where it ignores my preferred fable, in which case you can assume that a tiny minority are accurate."

Well guess what? About 95% describe a global cataclysmic deluge... and about 5% (if that) mention "Yahwah". You are saying that we should accept - without evidence - a 5% group as being correct.

Sure. No problem. Pending EVIDENCE, I will accept that the 5% who do NOT describe a global cataclysmic deluge as being correct. With no more reason than you do for accepting the "Yahweh and Noah" story as being correct.

God was willing to kill most all life on earth for a fresh start. You know it would go a long way in my belief if god killed evil people on a regular basis rather than just one fell swoop.

"Hey look they guy over there is raping a little boy. Call the police!!!

Never mind call the corroner he just died for no apparent reason."

"Oh man there is a warlord in my town he is killing girls for going to school, we should do something about this, dang it, forget it he's is dead"

If he was willing to kill all of humanity and all but extinguish life on earth once, you would think he could do a little better targeting and kill off bad guys. Not run of the mill sinners, just those who make human suffering. Maybe a three strikes and your out kinda thing to allow for some redemption.

"Did you know that mike was cheating with your steves wife? Should we tell his wife about it? Forget it he just died."

If I saw that doing bad thing had consequences I might think people would try harder to avoid doing such.

God was willing to kill most all life on earth for a fresh start. You know it would go a long way in my belief if god killed evil people on a regular basis rather than just one fell swoop.

"Hey look they guy over there is raping a little boy. Call the police!!!

Never mind call the corroner he just died for no apparent reason."

"Oh man there is a warlord in my town he is killing girls for going to school, we should do something about this, dang it, forget it he's is dead"

If he was willing to kill all of humanity and all but extinguish life on earth once, you would think he could do a little better targeting and kill off bad guys. Not run of the mill sinners, just those who make human suffering. Maybe a three strikes and your out kinda thing to allow for some redemption.

"Did you know that mike was cheating with your steves wife? Should we tell his wife about it? Forget it he just died."

If I saw that doing bad thing had consequences I might think people would try harder to avoid doing such.

you missed the point!God plan is perfect! Remember?

God flooded the earth because everyone is actually infected with T-Virus (Including the plants and animals)and they will turn into zombies exactly when the ark is finished.Noah and his family are the only one who's immune to T-Virus. (And the pairs or animals also immune too)You can forget about the plants, they will always still be alive and cleaned from the virus after being submerged for months

God didn't kill the guy who raped that little boy because god knows,30 years later, that guy will realize his mistake and turn into a good priest in a church with a lot of choir boys.

God let the warlord kill those girls because god knows,20 years later those girls will turn into prostitute and abusive mother.

God will never kill Mike, because god knows Steve is going to die in an accident 10 years later.And his wife surely needs Mike.

God flooded the earth because everyone is actually infected with T-Virus (Including the plants and animals)and they will turn into zombies exactly when the ark is finished.Noah and his family are the only one who's immune to T-Virus. (And the pairs or animals also immune too)You can forget about the plants, they will always still be alive and cleaned from the virus after being submerged for months

God didn't kill the guy who raped that little boy because god knows,30 years later, that guy will realize his mistake and turn into a good priest in a church with a lot of choir boys.

God let the warlord kill those girls because god knows,20 years later those girls will turn into prostitute and abusive mother.

God will never kill Mike, because god knows Steve is going to die in an accident 10 years later.And his wife surely needs Mike.

You got me there. Gods plan is perfect any percieved imperfections are just a byproduct of my lack of understanding.

Perhaps god could enlighten me!

BTW I am sure god could come up with a few examples of people who would not amount to anything and not be needed who when they sinned they could simply explode.

Hey on the noahs ark thing did any theist every try to answer how 8 people could feed and clean up the waste from millions of creatures. I would think that it would be almost a full time job just to clean up and feed an 2 elephants and a couple of the big cat specises.

Not to mention keeping said elephants and cat species away from each other when they got bored on day 37. I know I don't ever want to find myself standing between a pissed off elephant and a hungry lion.

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

Hey on the noahs ark thing did any theist every try to answer how 8 people could feed and clean up the waste from millions of creatures. I would think that it would be almost a full time job just to clean up and feed an 2 elephants and a couple of the big cat specises.

The answer is coke, a LOT of coke and weed to keep them sedated

How else do you think marijuana, poppy and coke still exist today?Noah brought tons of them in the ark.He need to get high too...Beside, it's for medical purpose, so, it's legal..

Hey on the noahs ark thing did any theist every try to answer how 8 people could feed and clean up the waste from millions of creatures. I would think that it would be almost a full time job just to clean up and feed an 2 elephants and a couple of the big cat specises.

The answer is coke, a LOT of coke and weed to keep them sedated

How else do you think marijuana, poppy and coke still exist today?Noah brought tons of them in the ark.He need to get high too...Beside, it's for medical purpose, so, it's legal..

hey I think you may have stumbled on another problem. I don't recall noah (Johnny Appleseed) traveling to south america and planting the unique seeds for the rain forest. How long do you think it would take for seeds to naturally dispurse their way around the world and deposit themselves in south america from the middle east, assuming that they could actually proliferate in a natural progression through all the environments in between? by bird, by wind, by sea, by runners and by normal seed casting.

If it was Noah and his progeny why did he bring all the fricking poison ivy to America (dick). I wonder how big would a bag of seeds and plant cutting would one need to account for all the plant life on earth. I wager that it would be a heck of a large fleet of Big rigs to plant enough seeds to have them proliferate from locations they were planted to current plant life density. Some plants are pretty difficult to cultivate this guy must have had one hell of a green thumb not to mention frequent flier miles.

Indigenous (locally adapted varieties, like temperate palm trees and salt water mangroves) and endemic (only found in one place, like Komodos and kangaroos) species of both plants and animals are the biggest and most obvious pieces of evidence against Noah's Ark being real.

Aside from all the other big and obvious pieces of evidence, of course.

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When all of Cinderella's finery changed back at midnight, why didn't the shoes disappear? What's up with that?

On D-Day, when the water began to rise why did the people who observed the construction of the ark over nearly a century not storm it and climb on board?

I would think that hundreds or perhaps thousands of people all trying to gain access to your ship as the water is rising would have been a relatively simple task. With only 8 people defending a couple of dozen bronze or stone axes and a dozen motivated people could have gained access in 30 minutes.

Clearly, god blinded the eyes of the sinners so they could not find the ark. And blocked their sense of smell so they would not notice all the animals. And closed their ears. And......

Wrong.

It was demons. There's a member on this board who will verify this for you.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

Depending on how you read it, between Yahweh deciding to flood the world, and actually doing it, there were between 7 days and 100 years. Probably lots more than 7: that was the time Noah had to load the ark itself, so construction would've begun a while before that. A few months to a year, let's say, between Yahweh deciding "kill everything" and actually doing it. Let's call it the time between P-day (when he made the plan) and D-Day (when he started the rains).

Here's the point: it presumes that Yahweh knew on P-Day that everyone who would be alive on P-Day (except Noah et al) would be evil and deserved to die. It's that, I think, that gives the most issues with free will....and god's benevolence.

On free will.....once P-day had passed, nobody could make any other choice than to be bad, without cauding god to explode in a paradox. There is even, perhaps, an argument to say that once god made his mind up, he CAUSED everyone to head towards evil from that point onwards. The omniscience vs. free will argument comes up a lot, but its this period that hihglights it most strongly, I think. Equally, once god decided they would be saved.....did Noah and crew have the free will to be able to sin?

On benevolence......But if we assume that men COULD still make a free choice....then does that not call god's benevolence into question? If it were still possible for a sinner to be redeemed, then does not P-day make him evil himself? In the gap between P-day and D-day, a man with free will could have turned to good (perhaps swayed by Noah's example). But it was clear on P-Day that god had decided to save only Noah and his family - so everyone else, from that day on, was stuffed. No matter how good they bacame in those few weeks and months, they were already doomed.

So to me, that period of time, above any other part of the Bible, highlights how horrific Yahweh actually is - he either damns people be setting the future, or damns people by not caring about their actions.

My old "Christian" apologist self is kicking in here and I wanted to respond (shortly) in a similar fashion of how I might have responded years ago:

QUOTING MYSELF:

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"God does not operate in a finite way. He works with our free choices and plans things according to the future he can already see (with some intervention when necessary). He already knew people would not repent and he already knew Noah and his family were the only righteous ones left. Due to his divine plan, which we Christians trust and obey, he decided to destroy the creation he owned b/c of their wickedness and he did it based upon their choices that he foreknew - so that he could continue his plan of sending Jesus to die for us and paving the way for redemption to all who believe and follow him.

So looking at the problem in a linear fashion (from our limited finite human understanding) is not going to help with anything. You have hardened your heart to the word of God and and until you deal with that first you won't be able to see any of God's plan and how it makes sense. His ways are not our ways. He is infinite! And we can't always understand the things he does. Logic and reason can only take us so far, then we must walk by faith and trust that he is holy and his plan is good (because he is the standard of what is good)."

Yes, I can still concoct these really bad rationalizations even to this day (aka - I can still wear the apologist hat!). Crazy huh?

"God does not operate in a finite way. He works with our free choices and plans things according to the future he can already see (with some intervention when necessary). He already knew people would not repent and he already knew Noah and his family were the only righteous ones left....

Trouble is (that crazy atheist logic again!), if Yahweh CAN see the future with that precision, then he knew before he even created Adam how THAT little scenario would play out. If you know in advance that creating a certain environment will lead to disaster, the rational thing to do is to create it differently.

Surely it isn't too hard for a god to consider and "foretell" the future for each possible "startup" condition? And then to select the startup that actually gives a good result? We have to assume therefore that either Yahweh deliberately chose a start-up condition that would lead to sub-optimal results (which is dumb), or accept that the world Yahweh created is the best he could do......but still massively flawed.

questioning the intelligence of biblical figures seems to be a no brainer.

The devil wittnessed the creation of himself and the universe (he knows he can't take on god ) yet he challenges god.

Noah's children just wittness the entire world flooded killing every last human and animal not on the ark. Decide just after the ark comes to rest on mount whatever, decide to defy god and try to sleep with god.

Jesus, who knows everything god knows says ("god why have you forsaken me.") Umm m because he is following the plan that you set up and you knew about since you were born.

Trouble is (that crazy atheist logic again!), if Yahweh CAN see the future with that precision, then he knew before he even created Adam how THAT little scenario would play out. If you know in advance that creating a certain environment will lead to disaster, the rational thing to do is to create it differently.

Surely it isn't too hard for a god to consider and "foretell" the future for each possible "startup" condition? And then to select the startup that actually gives a good result? We have to assume therefore that either Yahweh deliberately chose a start-up condition that would lead to sub-optimal results (which is dumb), or accept that the world Yahweh created is the best he could do......but still massively flawed.

MY OLD SELF AGAIN! lol...

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But see, God knows everything there is to know and since he is the standard of what is good (and we are not) it doesn't really matter if we think something is bad, intolerable, heinous, or appalling. God has his reasons for doing things and we (in our limited finite knowledge) must trust that his word is good and true. We have the Holy Spirit which guides us into all truth and we know that God works all things together for that which is ultimately good. It may look bad to us but that does not mean that it is truly bad or wrong. We do not lean on our own worldly understanding. If God decides to allow certain negative things to happen, then he had a bigger purpose and a bigger plan. It doesn't matter whether or not our fallen/carnal selves don't like it. We are not in a position to judge God! Job tried that and he failed b/c God is the King of Kings (Alpha and Omega) and we must obey him and his righteous plan. Worship Jesus and you will see God is good in all things!

HA! Listening to my 'old self' type that is insane! I can't believe I actually used to believe that load of bull.

But see, God knows everything there is to know and since he is the standard of what is good (and we are not) it doesn't really matter if we think something is bad, intolerable, heinous, or appalling. God has his reasons for doing things and we (in our limited finite knowledge) must trust that his word is good and true. We have the Holy Spirit which guides us into all truth and we know that God works all things together for that which is ultimately good. It may look bad to us but that does not mean that it is truly bad or wrong. We do not lean on our own worldly understanding. If God decides to allow certain negative things to happen, then he had a bigger purpose and a bigger plan. It doesn't matter whether or not our fallen/carnal selves don't like it. We are not in a position to judge God! Job tried that and he failed b/c God is the King of Kings (Alpha and Omega) and we must obey him and his righteous plan. Worship Jesus and you will see God is good in all things!

HA! Listening to my 'old self' type that is insane! I can't believe I actually used to believe that load of bull.

Bizarre isn't it?

I still don't even see the logic working, because what it therefore HAS to mean is that the "fall" in the garden, the serpent's intervention, and the descent of mankind into sin were all part of Yahweh's preordained plan. Which means he is judging us for something that he deliberately set up for us to fail!

That was one of the first chinks in the JW armor for me as a kid. The whole Eden setup--followed by the Noah's Ark fiasco. It was so unfair and so wrong that I could not get my mind around it. How the "Jehovah, our kind, heavenly father" image fit in with a guy so incompetent and so uncaring-- like Hitler's plans executed by Jerry Lewis, but dressed up like Captain Kangaroo. Is that psycho or what?

He made the two people, put the snake in the garden with the tree and sat back and watched it all happen--knowing how it would all turn out. And then he punished everyone for all time! Bwahahahah!

The children--if there were even any children on the earth at that time drowned painlessly, or maybe there were no kids killed, because of course, god would never kill innocent children, as Christians have come here and told us. Although god does kill children every day. But they go straight to heaven so it's all good. And god gave us life so he can take it away any time he wants to. But he doesn't kill anyone. It is our own sin that kills. If you would stop hardening your heart you would understand how much god loves you. [More crazy talk that would be rejected out of hand it it came from any other religion.]

But he didn't really want to be such a complete a$$hole, so he had his backup plan ready, too! He would later send his son to save everyone, but only after destroying everything in the flood. Again, a set up. Because god knew what would happen and made it happen anyway. And his son would not really be able to save everyone, only the tiny percent of the population who manage to hear and believe this incomprehensible story.

It makes me mad-- the idea that there are kids today who are just like I was, thinking they are horrible people, doomed because of Eve's screw-up, and confused about how someone can create them, love them and then drown them. For something that they never did! Nobody should be teaching children sh!t like that. I wish I could go into every Sunday school in the US and yell, "It's not true! It's just a fairy tale like Jack in the beanstalk!"

And, no, just talking about it does not mean that I think any of it is real. It gets tiring being surrounded by other people who seem to think it is real....[1]

It makes me mad-- the idea that there are kids today who are just like I was, thinking they are horrible people, doomed because of Eve's screw-up, and confused about how someone can create them, love them and then drown them. For something that they never did! Nobody should be teaching children sh!t like that. I wish I could go into every Sunday school in the US and yell, "It's not true! It's just a fairy tale like Jack in the beanstalk!"

Not true! At least Jack and the Beanstock had moral lessons. Like listen to your mother and don't get greedy.

I still don't even see the logic working, because what it therefore HAS to mean is that the "fall" in the garden, the serpent's intervention, and the descent of mankind into sin were all part of Yahweh's preordained plan. Which means he is judging us for something that he deliberately set up for us to fail!

Anyhoo.....what a shame no current believers feel able to jump in!

Years ago I knew a Christian guy who was struggling with homosexuality. He was living in LA doing extra work for movies (and taking male hookers at night) but he wanted to go back to bible 'school' and 'be healed' of his homo-erotic desires. By that time I was already a non-Christian (basically a deist) and he used to attempt to convert me back to the faith. During that time we actually discussed this issue (and related subjects pertaining to 'predestination'). The most fascinating (and disgusting) part of those discussions was that this man was willing to take his theology to the logical conclusion that God is just a big asshole in the sky who runs everything (basically a big mafia boss). This person (call him Bob) admitted that, "Yes, God is an asshole but I have to obey him otherwise I'm doomed. So, I will do what he says."

I was stunned. It was absolutely FLOORING to hear him admit that with a straight face and a straight tone of voice. That he could continue in his self-hatred, ignorance, and that amount of gullibility was astonishing. The cognitive dissonance couldn't get anymore clear. You have a professing Christian who has come to the conclusion that "God is good" yet simultaneously believes that "God is an asshole". The way in which this Christian was able to compartmentalize those two contrary beliefs is baffling. And yet, deep down I think all Christians ultimately practice this kind of self-deception. They intellectually know that this alleged God cannot be truly good yet continue to live by it out of fear that they might be wrong (and henceforth be damned to hell).

[Enter the great Robert Ingersoll for the win!] Here's a paraphrase.

By what standard do Christians judge that God is 'good'? The bible. And by what standard do Christians judge that God is an asshole mafia boss? The bible. So then, basically, it's "good" to be an asshole, monstrous, genocidal, homicidal, slave owner? The double standard is beyond comprehension, and yet this is what Christians are inadvertently endorsing. SO SAD!

This is why I choose to be what Dr. Peter Boghossian calls a Street Epistemologist.[1]